Hunting a Fool
by KuraOkami13
Summary: Yun-seong hunting is a lot harder than it sounds. Recovering from it is even harder. Talim learns that every day, but on this particular day, it's going to be just a little bit harder. Twoshot, just a test, unless prompted to continue.
1. Chapter 1

This is mainly just a prototype; a testing of the waters, so to speak, cuz I'm sorta, kinda, definitely new to the fandom of SC.

Also, heavily disappointed in the lack of Talim, Maxi, or both fics.

* * *

Soul Calibur II

A/N: Personal touches and elements have been made/changed

What started as a normal day of Yun-Seong hunting, ended rather violently for one young wind-god priestess named Talim. For the billionth time that week, she had managed to catch up to the elusive Korean fighter, only to lose the slip on him just as she was about to corner him, as usual. It was astounding, the different ways she had lost him; once she had gotten lost in the large Black Forest of Germany, and another time trying to navigate through the busy streets of Venice. Once an old lady had asked of her to fetch her foolish cat from a tree, right as Talim was about to pounce on Yun-Seong as well!

This one was just a bit different though. For one reason or another, the trail of Yun-Seong had made her follow it into a busy tavern; mistake number one, she should have waited for him to come out. Once in, she couldn't find him at all. Then, just as she was going to leave, a very rude, very perverse man decided to show his "affection" and "appreciation" of her young, flexible, and quite small body. So, for the first few hours of the day, Talim had been obliged to deal with the especially perverted male masses that, according to a crude comment she had heard once by the Spaniards on her island, "liked 'em young."

Talim narrowly escaped assault inside the tavern, even with her impressive and intimidating display of her blade skills, and after that had to restart her tracking of Yun-Seong. But this was not the end of her day, oh no! It was far from over! Foolishly Talim tried a shortcut, involving a running jump with a large, flat slab of tough oak-bark, and a slanted hill. She wasn't entirely sure what she had been thinking at that moment, but she was sure it wasn't through sanity that she had been thinking with. Hoping to beat him to the base of the mountain, she had taken the bark, and with a running start jumped off the edge, slid the bark under her feet, and tried to sled down the hill.

The deed itself had been fun, exhilarating almost, with one exception. A herd of deer had apparently chosen that particular day to migrate across their territory, and Talim ended up sledding right in the middle of their stampede. To keep from crashing or getting trampled (or worse) Talim had wisely decided to go with the flow of the herd… which, with the route they had taken, ended up turning her shortcut into a large divertive route. The herd eventually dispersed once it realized she was, in fact, _not_ one of their own and was a human. It was then she could continue on the path to Yun-Seong, give or take a few heart-stopping encounters with (and prompt fleeing from) mountain lions and a very angry bear.

It proceeded to get worse as Talim found herself repeatedly getting lost in the mountain ranges still, occasionally getting back on track but eventually getting off it accidentally, and very quickly. When she had finally-_finally!_- found his trail again, she had followed it into a run-down village nearby, with a creepy (and disturbed, she noted with his aura) medicine man and the wide-spread worship of some hero of theirs; some guy with a limp or broken arm or some other kind of disablement with some sort of note-worthy fighting skill. That was where the finale occurred. Where she ended up falling unconscious in the arms of a total stranger, exhausted beyond belief, lacking two, three days (she guessed) sleep, and looking bruised, battered, and ugly (or at least she thought she might).

The funny thing she was learning about the Soul Edge fragments, was that they didn't just fall into the hands of people and turn them into power-hungry killers. They also fell into the paws, claws, talons, hooves, wings, legs, tails, heads, arms, and bodies of any unfortunate animal that didn't expect to be hit head-on (sometimes literally) by a fragment of the evil sword. Prior to then, she hadn't come into direct contact with any such animal, just seen the process of madness and evil and corruption begin.

The monster that proceeded to knock down houses, rip apart structures, and tear into the bloody bodies of innocents, human and animal alike, was at least three times her size in width and height. Bulging veins visible through a thin layer of fur, massive piles of muscle on each bone, and claws that looked like just one swipe could slice her clean in half were on all four of its appendages, and ugly, thick vines of something red, purple, and pulsing coiled around the entire body. Pointed bat ears looked mangled, yellow eyes aglow, and two entire rows of crooked, jagged, and pointed teeth all on its bloodied, drooling face.

_And I had thought mountain lions were fierce before this!_

And thus, like any good girl with tonfa blades and an impulsive habit of jumping into the heart of danger for the sake of others, and being selfless to a fault, plus the addition of having a horrible four days of non-stop trailing and thus very frustrated, Talim whipped out her beloved Syi Salika and Loka Luha from their sheaths and jumped in front of the bloodthirsty monstrosity.

Not exactly her best idea, but her conscience and her duty as a priestess would not allow her to do otherwise. For what seemed like an eternity, was really three hours of non-stop fighting, Talim fought tooth and nail and tonfa blades against the corrupted Soul Edge-infected mountain lion. Three hours! Three hours of non-stop fighting, and dodging, and running. By the end of the third hour, she finally had managed to wittle away the monster's strength until it looked ready to collapse under itself. Just a few more hits, one kick to a leg maybe, and it'd come tumbling down and all it'd take to kill it would then be one bullet, or maybe one quick thrust of a spear.

Unfortunately, so was she. Unlike the monstrous lion, she wasn't mindless with a bloodthirsty rage, or so easily dismissive of the dangerously low health of her body; no, Talim was quite aware of what her body thought of this battle, and her sleepless schedule as of late, and unlike the monster she was only able to ignore her wounds and exhaustion for so long before she collapsed. And she was quite close to it, just one more step, one more breath, one more move.

Talim was on her knees, legs having finally given out and up, arms like lead, Syi Salika loose in her hand and Loka Luha one finger away from the ground. Her lungs were on fire, her entire body comprised of one word that started with a capital "p", and she had been dealing with tunnel vision for the past thirty minutes. The monster, of course, despite all its injuries and the obvious exhaustion in its body, could care less as it lifted one ginormous paw-claw-hand-thing above her head, snarling.

Talim never closed her eyes. Gladly, too, as she would have missed the sweet sound of painful snarling as the paw was knocked away by a man, wearing mostly white it looked like, swinging something really fast on a chain attached to a solid rod in his hand. He slid in between her and the monster like lightning, and had smacked the paw away just as fast. She couldn't see very well, what with the constant blurring, focusing, re-blurring, and refocusing of her vision, so Talim wasn't able to see how exactly he was forcing the monster-lion backward, as well as attacking it; she was just glad the brave man had saved her.

Then she realized someone was risking their life for her; that was unacceptable. Talim was supposed to be the one saving, not being saved; she needed to be the one to risk her life for others, not others risk themselves for her silly, inconsequential life!

So, she forced her vision to focus, let her at least aim well enough to avoid hitting the man, and with the last of her strength, heaved Syi Salika and threw it. A sickening crunch occurred, blood sprayed around the air and the man, a loud, agonizing, raspy roar followed, and then… silence. With a loud thump and a quaking of the earth and its body, the beast fell to the ground. Dead.

Talim herself had fallen to the ground, body collapsing but her mind still working; she wasn't unconscious, or dead, not yet! A shaky, but relieved breath gasped out of her, and faintly she heard footsteps coming towards her. Warm, big hands slipped underneath her, and shockwaves of pain jump-started her lungs into crying out, in pain and surprise. Instinctively she tried to shield herself, but being so weak it probably looked like the weak flailing of a baby.

"Easy, sweetheart. I gotcha." A voice, baritone, soft, and definitely male, whispered to her as she felt herself go weightlessly off the ground. It wasn't so much panic that made her cry or struggle, so much as the pain as the stranger cradled her up like a child (Talim was small enough to be one, anyway). Whatever the case, he was definitely muscled in the arms, and the chest if the firmness against her cheek was any indication, and she was half-inclined to compare it to Yun-Seong.

"Yun-Seong is definitely more muscle-y than you…" she spoke, though she only felt the Korean's name come through solidly. Her eyes tried to focus again, and Talim vaguely made out a thick neck and a strong, smooth jawline with one long, wide lock of black and blonde hair beside it.

"You're friend's safe, wherever he is. Just hang in there, little miss hero."

Yun-seong? Safe? HA! That was a good one; that boy could stop himself from getting into trouble just as easily as a pet dog could stop itself from chasing after a squirrel or a cat. He was practically a trouble-magnet. And whatever trouble he magnetized to him, she had to deal with.

Like this whole mess. And all because of that stupid sword, and Yun-Seong's stupid idea that he could use it!

"Stupid, evil sword is all that ever causes anything." And again, only a few choice words came out, this time the first three, she suspected, as she felt the stranger stiffen. Maybe the stranger knew…knew about Soul Edge.

"…Come on, sweetheart. Let's get you to the doc."

The doc? Talim thought, sleepily.

Like a doctor?

Oh, well as long as it wasn't that creepy medicine man… with that in mind, Talim let herself go limp into the man's arms. She lightly snuggled into his warmth, as her body shouted hurrahs at Talim, for finally saying yes to sleep. To rest.

Rest….sleep….that sounded….so good...so…

…heavenly…

* * *

Flames will be used to cook marshmallows; critiques will be used to advance mah skillz, and reviews will be used to warm my heart and encourage more writing.

It's mostly just a testing of the waters; however, if you guys would like it to continue, then by all means review to your hearts content about it. i've already got another chapter to add to it written, I'm just, again, testing it out first.

And before any of you ask; NO, this is NOT TalimYunseong.

Forewarning. :)

-KO13, signing out!


	2. Chapter 2

This is mainly just a prototype; a testing of the waters, so to speak, cuz I'm sorta, kinda, definitely new to the fandom of SC.

Also, heavily disappointed in the lack of Talim, Maxi, or both fics. Just sayin.

* * *

Soul Calibur II

A/N: Personal touches and elements have been made/changed

Talim woke up abruptly, body shooting to attention the moment her ears detected a loud, strange noise. Heart racing, she snatched up her tonfa blades from her side to protect herself from the man in front of her-only to find they weren't her blades at all! The object in her hand was… a bone!

She shrieked and dropped it, curling up away from the foreign, morbid, scary object that most definitely wasn't her beloved weapons! "Syi Salika! Loka Luha!" she cried, looking around the room, trying to find them. Where were they?

"Easy, easy! What are you lookin' for, sweetheart?" asked the man, the pet name catching her attention. Hadn't she heard it before? Talim looked towards him, expecting a gruff, big guy like the ones at the tavern, due to the deep baritone in his voice… and finding the exact opposite of a big, tough bar customer.

He was tall, much taller than herself, as most men turned out to be. He had some impressive muscle build on his body, despite the obvious bandages of wounds on his arms and abdomen, with a loose white sleeveless jacket on his shoulders. Equally white pants were on his legs, which she had no doubt were as muscled and strong as his upper body, as must be the rest of his body. He had, what she decided was an interesting style of hair- most of his black and blonde mane slicked back, save for a long, rebellious bang that arched high and fell down the side of his face, all the way to his clean-shaven chin.

For however long she had taken to examine the man, it was long enough for him to notice her eyes going up and down his body.

"Sheesh, I've been told I'm good on the eyes, but I didn't know I was still _that_ good." He teased, stepping forward, a silly grin on his face.

"B-begging your pardon?" Talim asked, incredulous at his smug words.

He laughed, full and loud making her jump, "Yeah, try and play innocent on me, but it won't change that I caught you staring."

"Oh, well-I-I apologize if I have offended you, s-"

He snorts, "Offend? _Me?_ Trust me sweetheart, I consider it a compliment."

Talim was unsure of how to reply to that. She bit her lip, to keep anything silly or nonsensical from flying out. "O-ok…uhm, you wouldn't happen to know where my Syi Salika and Loka Luha are, would you sir?"

"Drop the 'sir' thing, if you'd please." He said the instant she finished, crossing his arms (_that under the right circumstances look like they can crush apples with a flex…_ she thought) and leaning against a large, thick post that supported the ceiling over her room. "Name's Maxi. And your's?"

"Talim. You are…" Talim started, trying to go through the hazy cloud of images, sounds, and sensations in her memory and figure out how this guy looked familiar. He wasn't super-important, not a majorly iconic person, but his presence in her mind was still fresh and familiar… "…you are the man who saved me from that corrupt lion!" she exclaimed once the metaphorical lantern inside her mind was lit, feeling as if the entire world had been illuminated, "You saved me from it… and I didn't even thank you for it before everything went black!"

_Well that sure was rude of me!_

Maxi nodded, though he made a funny "tch" noise with his tongue, "Please; if anybody should be thanking anyone, it should be me thanking _you_, sweetheart."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you." He laughed, amused by her modesty, "You're the one who went and nearly killed yourself saving a handful of people you didn't even know, not to mention took down a gigantic monster along the ride!"

Talim averted her eyes, embarrassed as a fresh red flush began to form on her cheeks, "Still. I did not thank you for saving me…"

"Don't worry about it. I'd just like to know what's a girl like you doing here in this old shamble of a village; not to say I'm not grateful. " Maxi said with a smile, one that glowed and sent a warm happiness through Talim, "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't exactly be having a village to come home to."

Nodding, Talim settled herself on her bed, careful to avoid agitating her wounds that she hadn't looked at yet, but could definitely feel exist, and patted a place on the bed for Maxi to sit; just because she was the "big hero" didn't mean she should sit and him stand; in fact, she felt like she should be the one standing and letting him do the resting.

"It is a long story, and all stories are best told resting." She said with the wisdom that came from being the officially declared storyteller of her village's children. A light chuckle came from the black-blonde haired man and he obediently walked over and sat on the space she had made room for him.

"It all started back home, many years ago when I was a child…" she started, and from there Maxi lapsed into a content silence as he listened to her tell him her first encounter with an evil wind, how she had been so overwhelmed by its power she had fainted and stayed unconscious for days. Talim told him of how many in her village had forgotten the wind that had brought them a years' worth of disease and death, and an uncontrollable and raging hostility between her village's people and the Spaniard settlers. She told him of how years later, the same wind came, this time with a disturbing stranger carrying a metal shard that radiated evil and corruption.

Then Talim illustrated how after so much chaos in her home caused by it, the lives that were taken by its evil and the corrupted men and women and children that got infected with it, how she had finally managed to subdue it, and that the wind-god priestess had decided to go find the source of this wind. She had rightfully suspected her island to be just one of many victims of the metal fragment, and bravely how she left her home with only one change of clothes and her beloved and sacred blades Syi Salika and Loka Luha. Talim told how along the way she had come across a particularly bad case of the corruption, and by her personal oath to help anyone and everyone she could that was hurt or infected with the evil power how she had tried day and night for what must have been a month or two to purify and cure a sick child with the metal shard inside him.

She could remember that time, too clearly, the pale skin of the boy, his bloodshot, tear-ridden eyes, the multiple scars and blotches of bloody, rotting and mutating flesh, the boys pathetic cries as she did everything and anything, day and night, hour by hour, to find and destroy each piece of evil inside him. Yet like some sort of disease, the evil aura just kept on regenerating, kept on coming back in a heartbeat, kept on zapping the child and Talim's diminishing strength while it got stronger. The screams… oh god, the screams he made at night… how truly powerless she was, how weak and unworthy she had felt trying to save him when he obviously needed much more than just some Filipino wind priestess.

A hand laid itself on her shoulder, and Talim wiped her tears away, taking comfort in Maxi's gesture. Once she calmed, she continued her story, of how it had been around that time that she had met Yun-Seong, a Korean soldier and patriot, who had heard of the source of her evil wind to be an incredible power… incredible enough to help him win the war for his country. He had helped her to regain enough confidence and inspiration in herself to continue to try to help the ailing child. It wasn't enough, never enough, as the boy finally died with a choked scream, and a loud, sickening gurgle. His body was taken away to be buried, and there it was; the metal fragment, the source of his suffering, and Talim's, bloodied and covered in some kind of nasty pus, no doubt from the boy's body.

And not a day later, Yun-Seong was gone, and so was the shard. Thus had begun Talim's painstakingly long and hard journey to catch up with the Korean fighter and try to knock some sense into him. How she had been tracking him for what seemed and probably was months, getting mixed up into so many other cases of pain, how she kept finding herself getting thrown into some other trouble that put her three steps back and Yun-Seong two steps ahead.

And then came the events of the past month…

Maxi, who during the entire story had been solemnly and sympathetically silent, was now clutching his stomach as he howled with laughter. All the while Talim, with cheeks aflame, had to tell him about her having to save an old lady's cat, a very unfortunately timed acrobatic race across an Arabian city against some guy who kept calling himself the prince of Persia, her attempts at bargaining with a really tall and buff guy that looked like he had been hunting his entire life, the deer herd sledding, the escape from the tavern, her almost running straight into a tree trying to run from an angry bear…

Pathetically, with an unintentionally adorable pout, Talim tried to growl though it came out more like a whimper, "It's not funny…"

"It's hilarious!" he gasped, "Have you any idea of how god-damn funny that is?"

"Not really...it's more like embarrassing…"

His laughter was starting to die down at this point, "Just you wait, girly; a couple more years from now, when you're all grown up and got that Yun-Seong boy to get his idiocy knocked out of him, you'll look back on all this and find it just as hilarious as I do."

Her pout got bigger, and she was too focused on the funny way his eyebrows trailed upward and at the same time made an extra flowing trail that bounced like a normal strand of hair, to notice how his amused gaze faltered, even softened at it. "I doubt it."

"You will… so you _really_ did race with the esteemed Prince of Persia? And _won_?"

"I wouldn't have Syi Salika and Lokua Luha, otherwise. "

"Da~amn."

"Which reminds me…" Talim began, taking another quick sweep of the sturdy wood-framed room with her eyes, "Do you know where they are? My blades?"

He nodded, "I do. But your little heroic act- inspiring and sweet as it was-is going to cost you."

Talim was a bit surprised, but she shrugged. She had never heard of paying people for saving them, but if that was the way this village ran, than who was she to say no? "Okay, how much?"

One eyebrow quirked high, and Maxi gave her a funny look, "Money isn't the issue."

"…oh. Then what do you mean by cost me?"

"Sweetheart… not for nothing, but you're act almost got you killed; it's going to take a lot longer than one night's rest to recover from that." He said, serious and all humor gone. His tone was sharp, cold, but she could see the sympathy behind it in his eyes.

"Oh…OH. That kind of a cost…" his affirmative nod confirmed her epiphany of the 'cost', and Talim felt something bad settle into her stomach. "So…how long? Days?"

"…"

She tried again, biting her lip, "Weeks?"

He held up four digits. "Four weeks?"

"Four months." Was his brisk, curt reply.

Talim's jaw dropped, "Four _months_?"

"Minimum."

"No! that isn't-that's-" but when she thought about, it was sort of reasonable a period for some injuries, and she felt pretty banged up…

"…UGH." It still didn't stop her from vigorously hating it, she told herself as Talim slumped into the bed, groaning.

"'Could be worse, kiddo." Maxi noted offhandedly, leaning against the wall that the bed was right next to.

A heavy sigh escaped her lungs, and she partially didn't want to answer to the underlying question. "How could it be worse?"

"'Could be dead, obviously. Or, the one that would really piss you off…"

"Which is?" she lifted her head up, and as he spoke she noticed the peculiar way he was looking at his own wounds, the bandages on his upper body.

"Permanent damage." The very phrase made her flinch.

"Good point. I guess I should count my blessings first before I count my curses…" Talim thought aloud, looking to Maxi who met her gaze evenly. For a long moment they kept it like that, her gaze in contact with his own, the priestess noting offhandedly how dark his eyes looked from there, before finally she tore hers away and averted it to the end railing of the bed. "I seem to be forgetting to do that a lot lately…"

Maybe that was why she hadn't been in favor of the wind as she usually was…

"We all do. Now," he started in a louder, solid voice, and he got himself off the bed and to his feet, "fun and entertaining as this was, I do believe, little miss hero, that you need to rest. From what you've told me, you've had one helluva week, and decent rest will definitely help with your recovery."

Talim jumped as he suddenly announced it, and pouted at his words, "But I don't want to sleep! You make good company, unorthodox as you seem to be."

He laughed, "You have no idea. And don't worry, girlie; my place is hollering distance from your room. You wake up and find yourself lonely, all you gotta do is bust that window open" he briefly paused to point at a particular window that was arm's distance from Talim, "and start calling. Got it?"

She nodded, disappointed that her company was going, but she would be willing to understand why for the moment. "Yeah, I got it." She growled, crossing her arms and huffing as Talim slumped right back into the pillows underneath her.

In return he gave her a satisfied grin, which Talim quickly decided she would accept as his apology for leaving, and he gave her a salute before turning towards the door, "Later, then, priestess."

Maxi was one second away from the door, one second away from grabbing the knob and leaving, when she called, "Maxi."

He turned to her, a curious, expectant, patient expression on his face as he brought his attention on her, "Yeah?"

Talim waited a few seconds, thinking about her wording. A grin soon painted itself onto her lips, and she folded one arm into the other while at the same time held out her hand, palm up, expectantly, "Give me back my bandana."

Maxi's eyes widened, eyebrows furrowed, and he offered her a deeply incredulous, shocked really, look as one of his hands dug into the insides of his jacket. It changed as he brought out a long, blue silken cloth from the navy-colored inside of the jacket, turning from shocked to curiously suspicious, "Now how in the _world_ did you notice that?"

Her grin got bigger as he handed it to her, finding his large, rough hands a pleasant touch against her own. With an uncharacteristically smug tone that she tried to keep hidden from the world, Talim replied, "You can't live with a thief named the Prince, and honestly expect a girl to _not_ have to pick up a few things from it."

He was quiet for a moment, before returning her smile to her, crossing his arms at her with some sort of light in his eyes; something akin to respect maybe? Oh how helpful that would be, she told herself.

"Touché."

* * *

In which our favorite wind priestess wakes up (in her blue alternate costume from SC2) and meets a new friend. Also, if any of you catch the Prince of Persia reference (and it shouldn't be hard. I wasn't exactly subtle with it...) then kudos to you. Also also, i know Talim's story on the games say the boy she was trying to save survived, but I kinda pulled a creative twist and made him die. Leave me alone!

Flames will be used to cook marshmallows; critiques will be used to advance mah skillz, and reviews will be used to warm my heart and encourage more writing.

It's mostly just a testing of the waters; however, if you guys would like it to continue, then by all means review to your hearts content about it.

And before any of you ask; NO, this is NOT TalimYunseong.

Forewarning. :)

-KO13, signing out!


End file.
